Mircea Cantor’s work The Landscape is Changing, 2003, opens with a routine street scene. Gradually, it becomes apparent that a group of young men and women has gathered on the street, each holding a reflective panel up to his or her face. Orientated in the same direction, as if demonstrating against or facing an invisible presence, they start marching down the street as a single block composed of numerous individuals. Cars keep driving by, the passersby go about their business, and the demonstrators continue to alternate between marching and standing still.
This is a silent protest, and the urban and human reality reflected in the demonstrator’s mirror-like panels becomes the poignant, fluid and flickering content of their protest. The character of this procession – which is simultaneously active and subdued – endows the work with a spectacular, fateful dimension. Like the street noises underscoring the pain and horror in the course of a formal, silently advancing funeral procession, the reflective panels stand in for the absent sounds of protest; suffice it to put a mirror up to reality in order to clearly articulate one’s position.
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